ZOE the 3rd Flight
by GrizzlyBiscuit
Summary: Taking place near the turn of the century, a new Orbital Frame is being made. When man becomes machine, how long will it take for the war to come for it and the pilot?
1. Chapter 1

**Let me just say that I was inspired to write this and put pen to paper all because of one Writer's work. I will give them an Honorable Mention as soon as I explain what's going on. There will be many references to Z.O.E. game One and Two, and there will also be references to the animated series Idolo and Dolores, I. I do not own any of those mentioned, nor did I get permission to use the names, places, or events to be mentioned in this story. This story takes place near the end of the century, long after the final incident in The 2nd Runner between Nohman and Dingo.**

**Those not interested in reading at this point, turn back now.**

**For all those who are interested in reading, Here begins the journey of two people whose lives are no longer their own.**

**Honorable Mention goes out to RyuDraconis. Reading your work of art gave me the idea to write this. I do not mean to offend with this work of art and if I have copied this idea from soneone else, someone please say so.

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Zone of the Enders

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Beginning Signal Initiation…

Searching for Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Beginning Playback…

* * *

The year was 2199, near the end of the latest and greatest century of mankind.

Actually, it was just another year and another bygone century fading into the backdrop of history. The many skirmishes between Bahram and the Earth forces had forced humanity to spread further outward in hopes of escaping the infighting between the latest manmade weaponry and scientific ingenuity. It was all legitimate on paper that mankind needed to have outposts stretching away from the fighting in hopes of calming the rage in the human heart and the war propaganda being placed in the hearts of the newest children born under the flag of battle, but the truth was far different.

Saturn's moons had a few outposts on them, though the ice on Rhea and Iapetus was like digging through the harder substances on Earth. It was all for the better since the outposts were built along the idea of igloos. Only the tubing connecting the docking ladders on the surface of the planet led up and down, keeping the pressure intact under the ice and the city's warm enough to survive. Five years had passed and only now was the idea of traveling out from the primary planets of the solar system catching on with the populace.

Before, Rhea and Iapetus had been used for military mining and commercial mining to establish the city and the less known weapons of war. It was on Rhea that the true testing of war weaponry was still going on…

* * *

2199/06/24

Head scientist and God of all things orbital, Professor Genjiki Folston sat and watched the test flight of the latest Orbital Frame in development. It was a bit of a joke for those who worked with him, Japanese ancestry with some off world for a last name. Mutts of the Universe, there had been a lack of selection between people and his father had found a woman who would at least pronounce his name right.

Lucky him…

He had wanted to be on the forefront of technology and wars tended to make or break people in history's big book of know it alls. He spent the better part of his time in university after university learning everything he could on earth, then transferred out from there to Mars.

To say he was liked would have been an outright lie.

With the war between the Bahram forces and Earth defense forces that had gone on for almost two generations, prejudice was high amongst everyone. He spent all his time in the greatest of learning centers he could find, and even a few of those that were on the back half of the militaries paid coat heels for the best science he could fabricate. A lot of times he had been threatened with death if he was a spy, but there was never anyone he knew that was high up a political/military ladder, so they slapped him around some and forgot about him.

It was only when he made it to Antilia that he had some place he could put his technology and science to use. Rachel Links had begun testing the first practical application to new weaponry when he had left Mars for the Jupiter spacestation, probably fate telling him to get out now before someone actually did put a bullet into all that hard learned science. He started gathering everything he could on Rachel Links technology and with a few connections in the Ethernet, he was able to gather at least a rough blueprint on the production model of Idolo, the test model of a weapon called an 'orbital frame'.

He had been caught quickly afterwards. The charges were espionage and terrorism.

Although never truly imprisoned, his life was never his own afterwards. He had been forced to work on the next generation of Orbital frame by the military on Antilia. Oh, they never said who they were factioned with, but it was pretty obvious. If he needed money or parts, he'd have them 'next day or sooner'. Only a few people have that kind of power, money, and coercion to get a judge to 'lock you up and throw away the key' in the deepest pit of hell.

He was almost ready with his model of an orbital frame when they sent him Jehuty. After that, they sent him and his toy very far away. Saturn was the next best place to the back ass of the universe, uncolonized, unlivable, and definitely way too far out for anyone to seriously think of looking for him, if they even wanted him. Once again, given the barest of facilities to work with, he was ordered to work on his model as fast as he could.

It was a week after he started again that Antilia had been attacked by insurgents. Apparently, Bahram had learned about Jehuty and had come for it. Once again, fate had seen fit to save him from death and keep its chosen child away from anything remotely dangerous, yet here he was building an engine of destruction.

He experimented with Metatron from the next 5 years, learning everything he could about it and the Pandora's box that Rachel Links had opened. Given that the better part of 10 years had been devoted to his involvement with the project, they started letting him get glimpses of the outside world and the real occurrences with the various orbital frames that had begun to spring up all throughout the war. As he gained more and more insight into Metatron and its practical application, he started finding out just how far his science could take him before he started having to make a whole new science.

It was in 2172 that the fourth orbital frame made itself into the history books. On her deathbed, Rachel Links who had been lost in the test frame fiasco had sent her husband a package that had taken five years to get ferried to him, an Orbital Frame with a fully functional Artificial Intelligence. It had spent months traveling from Earth back to Mars where it had been created at and eventually was classified terminated after a battle which involved as yet an unfinished Orbital Frame and the frame that came to be known as Dolores.

It was only when he had received what was left of the junked out scraps did he only then realize that Bahram had gotten hold of his own technology and intermingled it with that of the late Rachel Links technology. He had made the system viable only to the pilot and not for an A.I. to assist in piloting. In fact, A.I. incorporation was something he had never even considered. There was a fine line where science was supposed to dabble in, and he was a strict humanitarian in the concept that man before machine.

In 2173, Jehuty was confirmed on course for Mars from the moon Calisto. It's target was Auuman, Bahram's main base.

He only heard about what happened afterwards, but apparently Jehuty had gone through several modifications leading up to the war that ended the Bahram's chances of winning. In a battle of God like power, Anubis, the Bahram controlled frame, and Jehuty fought in trans-dimensional space. Jehuty won, but barely and possibly in some small part to the frame runner, a man named Dingo Egret.

The battle didn't mean much to him, but the fact that Bahram had recreated Nephtis meant everything to him.

Nephtis had been an Orbital Frame run by woman known only as Viola. Bahram had managed to imprint a working variation of Viola's mind into a free working A.I. was technology he was sure he could manage. He spent the next 26 years going through the personal files of millions of pilots that were to be used and then began creating a theoretical mock up of an A.I. program that could incorporate the persona it would become.

It was only when he tried to allow it to learn that he failed. As with the Bahram programming, he soon found that the set parameters of the A.I. persona could not expand beyond its recorded data. The computer was unable to formulate its own actions from the mindset if it never learned and was shot down by the targeting systems here on the base over and over again. It would get stuck on one set of actions over and over again, and the base computers would sometimes get it on the first pass, but nail it ninety eight percent of the time afterwards.

That was until yesterday…

* * *

"Doctor Folston." A staff sergeant stood at ease by the door he had just entered while Genjiki's nose was buried in his terminal.

"What?" came the terse reply. He never answered the military people that came to him with anything other than contempt. His white lab coat felt ten times heavier than what it needed to be, the green fatigue pants he had on were the only other clothing he had besides the tan button up of a shirt that was eras old.

"We brought you a new component for your Orbital Frame." The sergeant spoke crisply, yet never moved from where he stood.

Genjiki's brown eyes rose to meet that of the sergeant. He had not requested for any more parts for his Orbital Frame. Scratching at his graying hair, he wondered if this was some sort of joke that the men were playing on him.

"I've been ordered to bring you down to the testing area while the part is installed into the Frame, Sir." The sergeant didn't move but he physically tensed when Genjiki's hands slammed onto the desk and he stood up with a jerk. The chair he had been sitting in slammed into the wall and fell ungainly on its side.

"What part are they installing on my Frame?" His voice was near hysterics, yet he spat out the venom filled words in a barely audible hiss.

"I was not ordered to give you that information, Sir." The sergeant did move this time, coming to attention with a hand on his sidearm. "You need to come with me right now, Sir."

"Of course, I'm coming!" Genjiki did shout this time, rushing around his desk and out the door with the sergeant on his heels. "As if I'd allow you idiots to destroy a lifetime of work by installing junk!"

Instead of heading to the control room, Genjiki marched briskly down the halls and past terrified scientists out into the bay where the Orbital Frame had been laid on its back. They had removed the chest plate from the mecha and were placing something down into a recess no bigger than a casket as Genjiki started up the ladders toward the crew.

"What in the Gods names do you think you're doing to my work?!" Genjiki said as he began pushing people out of his way until he had two rifles pushed nearly into his nose.

"Ah, Doctor Folston." A man dressed as a civilian walked up to Genjiki behind the rifles. His hair was a rusty brown and his eyes were greenish blue, sure signs that he was from earth if ever the doctor had seen them, though the way he was built like a gladiator from some by gone era also helped. Martians lived in less gravity than Earthers did, which was a dead give away to their origins. "We've given you years to develop an A.I. system for our Orbital Frame. We're done waiting."

"So you're installing machinery into a Frame that may or may not be compatible?" Genjiki wanted to rip the man's face off, whether they shot him for it or not. "I told you that the Frame they salvaged from the Dolores incident was too incompatible to be used in this frame. Links technology and my own are too diversified to work well together."

"Our other scientists have devised a way to sidestep the problem." The man turned back toward the frame with a triumphant smile on his face. "We're installing wetware to the machine."

"Wetware?!?" Genjiki did try to come through the rifles, and had a few people not looped their arms around his neck and shoulders, he would have been shot. "Wetware is an archaic technology! No one uses wetware anymore!"

"That's why we reverse engineered it." The man said as he looked chidingly at the scientist. "Let him through, there's nothing the man can do about the process now that it's begun."

The rifles moved and the arms released him, yet he looked unsure at the riflemen anyways before adjusting his coat and brushing everyone to the side as he came over to the exposed chest section. Looking down into the machine, he was afraid of what he was going to see, yet nothing could prepare him for what they had actually done.

Coffin sized space was apparently all they needed when they had placed the man in there. Brown hair covered his brow and his face was the pallor of death, yet that was all the skin they could find. The man's body was covered in Metatron, from his neck downwards, his body had a growth of Metatron clinging to his body. With the crystalline substance covering him, it was impossible to tell if he was alive or not.

Metatron that was inside the machine had been mainlined into the feet and hands. His body looked to have been crucified with arms outstretched to either side of him. The trace elements that made up Metatron rippled through him like a light effect as it spread away from where his chest would be and flowed outward to the frame. It took only moments before the light effect playing over the man's body rippled throughout the frames.

"What have you done?" Genjiki could only mutter in shock as he watched.

"We fixed the problem of an A.I." the man said as he came up along side the Doctor. "Meet Zevran Bane, origins classified, approximately 28 years of age. He was a top hopeful for the war until a freak accident on Antilia put him like this."

"Accident?" The Doctor broke his eyes away from the man in the machine to look at the one beside him.

"We had a planned pilot for the Frame on Antilia, Jehuty." His face turned serious as he continued to watch over the process happening in the Frame. "He was one of the men who was supposed to get that man there, and if not able to get him there, to destroy the frame so it couldn't be captured. While transporting the man from his room to Jehuty, they were passing through a science station where they were testing Metatron for other applications. About that time, we assume that the base came under fire and an explosion turned the room into a death trap."

He looked the Doctor in the face. "Everyone else was lucky enough to die, this one didn't know he should be dead." Genjiki looked back down at the man as he was being incorporated into the machine. "He's technically as dead as a corpse, but his brain didn't die. Occasionally, because of the wound he took in the back, we get a sporadic spike in brain activity before it shuts down completely again. There were a lot of animals who wanted to study him and they all came to the conclusion that if they could keep his body long enough, the Metatron that had separated his spinal column in his neck would eventually keep his body alive and usable for more gruesome uses."

"That's…" The Doctor didn't know what it was. Inhumane came to mind, but the human vocabulary couldn't begin to describe what kind of travesty to life this was.

"I'm Marsden, by the by." The Doctor looked up into his face with a shocked surprise, being brought out of a daze he had fallen into. "Fredrick Marsden since you asked so nicely."

"I didn't ask you for your name." The Doctor pointedly ignored that offered hand.

"They told me you'd be like this, so I'd be prepared for you." He dropped his hand and smiled with a cocky manner. "They didn't tell be you were an obstinate old man."

"Why are you telling me your name for, anyways?" The Doctor was getting a cold chill up his back, maybe from being too close to forbidden science. Anything that involved this kind of act to be given a go ahead meant trouble for him.

"I'm to be your Liaison for the next six months." Fredrick put his hands in his slacks as he looked down at the man in the machine.

"Six months?" Genjiki had a sudden fear what was coming next.

"If you can't get this working the way we want it in six months, We'll see how well you fly in space."

* * *

Programming a human mind had been simplicity, the equivalent to an organic computer dropped in his lap. They were also right about something being left in the poor boy's head or it wouldn't have been able to fool the computer as long as it had. He had thrown in a few virtual weapons that may exist in the near future and vectored in firing points, rotation time, time to fire, time to reload, everything you could possibly think of when it came to weaponry and then some stuff that was just flat out impossible.

The Zero Shift technology always kept the target just out of range of the weapons, not to mention its vector trap and vector cannon modifications which could finally be used to some degree of accuracy. The Metatron blades in the slots contained from wrist to elbow could sling up and up into the hands to cut away at in close weapons while brackets in the wrists themselves focused and shot short range energy bolts capable of melting the toughest LEV armor.

It was the highest point of his science, and he didn't like it in the least. He had finally sacrificed his morals to get to the point where he had become something important, and it had only cost him one human life. He could look everyone in the eye and tell them what a great success he was, if only he could look himself in the eye when he looked in the mirror.

Marsden had been his ever present ghost, though he wasn't here just yet. It would be soon enough though, and the guilt would begin all over again. He watched as the Frame finished its run on the course, series test fifty seven completed of a possible sixty. The transparent pane on the cockpit of the Orbital Frame mocking him that it was pilotless once more, it made him want to be sick.

"Which one has it finished?" Marsden asked as he walked through the silent doors that opened and closed for him. "Please tell me it's somewhere above Thirty this time."

"Three more tests and it will finish everything we've got." Genjiki spoke for Marsden and he reclined backwards into his chair. His neck hurt, but pain was something he gave up against a long time ago.

"Then it's nearly ready for a pilot." Marsden said as he stood next to the seated Genjiki. His hands were in his pockets while his slacks looked to have been slept in. Genjiki wondered if this was the only set of clothes the man had brought with him.

"It may not need a Pilot." Genjiki brought up the proficiency reports from all the tests. "In all of them, only two tests even got close to five percent targeting, the rest of them weren't even worth arming anything over."

"Machines are tools only, Doctor." Marsden reminded him. "Mankind has to take things into their own hands and make something out of itself."

"human error is usually the failing point of any great piece of machinery.' Genjiki threw back at him, looking out of the corner of his eye to Marsden. "A weapon in the hands of a man who breaks is a danger to everyone but the weilder. This weapon is too powerful for something like that to happen."

"If the machine isn't tested with a pilot, they what's to say that the machinery won't eventually go faulty as well?" Marsden came back with a valid point. "All the programming in the world can't keep up with something totally random jarring the machine into a psychopath. Someone needs to be inside of it to pull the plug, if necessary."

"Will it be tested here?" Genjiki asked, wondering if this place would be his grave instead of his prison.

"Once you're done, we'll be moving to Rhea." Marsden said as he looked down at the Doctor. "Hopefully, they'll have a bigger selection of clothes there than just military fatigues. I hate green."

"I'll miss this place." Genjiki ran his aged hands over the controls in front of him, initializing the next test.

"Not as much as I will." Marsden spoke sarcastically as he waved and headed for the doors.

He watched as the Frame took off again and begun its maneuvers, once again flying either out of range of the short range missiles before changing its course and flying downward at a steep dive only to pull out and skim the surface of the training room only feet above the ground. The vector trap around it would occasionally be used like a pocket of space, distorting energy shots around it or simply opening a space for the beams to pass into and disappear from conventional space.

His name would be up there among the greatest minds of the known universe, and all it had cost him was a human life.


	2. Chapter 2

**I figured I should get a second chapter made up for this story as the first chapter was pretty much a cursory introduction into the direction I wanted to go with this thing. So, I give you chapter two way faster than I normally write these things. Hope it's still up to snuff...**

**Disclaimer: Zone of the Enders does not endorse the use or piloting of any Orbital Frames characterized within this story, all information is strictly fictional and is used only as reference from both Video Games and Anime.**

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Beginning Signal Initiation…

Searching for Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Continuing Playback…

* * *

Dr. Genjiki Folston was not a pleased man to be traveling between moons, something about space travel and the imminent but all too fatal impact of a rogue comet plowing through the shuttle moving slower than transgate travel made him nervous. Worm hole technology and magnetic rail launching was a lot safer seeing as your atoms were spread over a smaller area as everything in the space outside of the ship was compressed down to something roughly the side of a baseball and shot from planet to planet over millions of miles. Granted, hitting something at almost light speed would still kill you, but it would be a lot faster than implosion, explosion, suffocation, asphyxiation, or freezing to death nearly all at once.

Fredrick Marsden was having the time of his life, however. Sitting in the only other seat of the small transport shuttle ferrying them from one moon to the other, he reclined back and hummed along to the local space channel music sent via Ethernet band that was beamed directly into space through those very same gates just mentioned. To say that he was heading towards something resembling civilization was a joke, but anything that wasn't a base and more a city in production made his whole outlook that much better.

"I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to get the hell out of there." Marsden happily crowed as he took a bottle of water out of a side holder in the chair and popped it open.

"Do you have to act like you're a college student on siesta?" Genjiki griped once more. He was getting tired of griping and was about to upgrade to yelling.

"Siesta?" Marsden looked at him as if he was seeing something new. "Talk about fossilized. I think they used that word when there were borders on Earth." He took a drink from his water before looking forward at the wall. "Don't worry, Doctor. We should be arriving at Rhea soon enough, and then you can be done with me for at least another day."

"I won't be done with you until I go over the Orbital Frame for a few hours once we arrive." Genjiki muttered darkly, imagining the stress the surface of the Frame had gone through for its first travel through the black void, but he wanted to take a look at the person that was now an integral part of the Frame and see if he had survived his first flight.

"You'll still have an easier time than I will." Marsden muttered as he thought about what he was about to go through for finding a pilot for this machine. He didn't like the military anymore than Genjiki did at this point, although he had to work arm in arm with them.

"You're sure no one is able to have access to the frame?" Genjiki couldn't stress hard enough that no one be seated in the frame until the A.I. was tested.

"The only ones who have access are the cargo workers, and no one is dumb enough to be down there in the hold while in flight." Marsden mused as he finished off the bottle.

* * *

"Would you hurry yourself up and finish strapping down that cargo, already?" shouted one of the techs from the gantry above to the sole member in the hold. "And stay away from that robot for a change, would ya? I don't want to be shot by an irate private."

The orange jumpsuit clad woman cinched off another set of cargo and was moving slowly as she could without being sent adrift in the hold and the ship having to slow down enough for the gravity generators to be turned on. Short brown mousy hair that stuck out in spikes under the marine cap was the only identifying mark that it was a female actually working in the hold, that and her build was underdeveloped for a 25 year old.

Barely making a C cup, she was the most well toned PFC in the Space Marines. She was also the only female in the platoon outposted to his back ass mission that was too hush to tell even why they were out here. The only thing they were allowed to say was that the Orbital Frame they were transporting was more important than their allegiance to God. Well toned frame monkeying over crate and cargo nets, she moved slowly but surely to each task one by one.

A communications alerted by the bulkhead over her head, and the tech above cursed as he worked himself over to it before keying it on. "What the hell's taking so long down there, Carlyle?" the voice on the other side sounded like it was used to quick answers and expected mind reading on the part of the questioned.

"When they packed everything in, they didn't strap anything down expect to keep it in one general mess down here, Sir." The man responded back into the speaker, cringing at the weak story it sounded to his own ears. "They definitely aren't Marines, Sir."

"You're barely a Marine yourself, Carlyle." The man gruffly responded. "What about Diego?"

He looked over the side down at the woman working another section of the supplies down. "She's doing, Sir. At least she can hold her breakfast."

"Lock down someplace." The man spoke on the other side as he began barking orders to someone else. "Seems we're about to hit what they call atmosphere soon, and it's something rough. If you make it, you'll be on your way to hell jumping."

The com cut off with a click and Carlyle looked around for some shoulder straps so he could ride out the bucking the ship was about to go through. "Diego!" he called out as he pushed off the wall. "Get situated! We're hitting turbulence!"

"And where the hell am I supposed to get hitched in at down here?!?" She shouted back, pissed that she was getting her first hard drop in the belly of a shipper.

"You better find somewhere soon before you get fubar." Carlyle said as he slipped his arms into the wall harness and started to situate himself down.

Growling an oath that she bit off, she looked around the hold finding the only thing that she could get to that might save her a broken head, and it was extremely off limits to her. The cockpit of the Frame gaped invitingly to her, seat and harness beckoning safety to her as long as she was able to get over to it. She would get busted down to scrubbing out the barracks for it, for a month, but anything had to be better than sitting out training and then getting tossed back into training after everyone else had been shipped out with the Frame and the scientist.

Pushing off from the only foothold she could get on, she could feel the vibrations starting to pick up through the cargo even before she made it across to the cockpit. She rolled head over heels before she got to the seat, directing her feet down so that she could control her stop as she reached down and grabbed hold of the side of the cockpit before pulling herself in and pulling herself down into the seat. She worked the harness on the seat together and cinched it down to fit her size, though there was still some gap in them that made her shake in the seat. Reaching down to the armrests, her hands briefly passed over the orbs semi protruding from them before she gripped the finger slots tightly.

The ship started rocking harder and shuddering a bit more so than a normal atmosphere drop would do on a ship. Diego could have swore she heard some kind of oath come from Carlyle, but put it out of her head as she started to concentrate on her own situation. Metal stressed somewhere throughout the ship, making her wince at the thought of something shearing off and the errant thought that the cockpit would could must have passed through her head as a translucent plating seemed to ripple up from the side of the frame and overtop of herself.

"I am so getting court martialled for this." She muttered to herself as she tried to look around for the control that she hit in the finger grips to toggle the window off. Even as she started to systematically trace out the grooves of the spheres, the green tracers started to pulse outward along the grooves and outward through the cockpit.

"Orbital Frame A.I. systems online." A male voice called out into the cockpit as the monitor flickered to life with a dim glow, pre programmed flight parameters cycling over the screen. "Energy outputs rising to initial start up protocols."

"Shut up." Diego muttered as she slipped out one of her shoulders and looked down into the half orb as it strobed with the green luminescent color. She switched shoulders as she examined the other one, finding nothing in this one as well as she began to get pissed off.

"Beginning engine ignition, cycling power to targeting systems." The male voice continued to drone on as it powered up.

"Shut up." Diego verbally spat as she began toggling switches left and right along the monitor and the boards from left to right. "Open up, already. I like being a marine."

"Sensors, online." The canopy started to stream technical info across the screen and on the monitor at the same time faster than what she could keep up with it. Not like she wanted to keep up with it, however. She wanted out of this court martial trap. "Warning: structural integrity breach detected in outer hull. Advising immediate takeoff."

Those were not the words she wanted to hear just then. Looking up in shock, she noticed that Carlyle had gotten loose from the wall and was moving up a ladder into the upper part of the ship as fast as his stubby legs could take him. "God damn it!" she shouted as she slammed her fist into the canopy. She wouldn't get left behind like this unless there was something seriously wrong with the ship.

"Start up override activated." The male voice called up and she looked down at the heads up display in front of her as if it just spoke gibberish. "All systems entering stand by mode while Pilot calibrations are taken."

"Wait just a second, you stupid junk box.!" She punched the monitor in front of her, causing the screen to crack with the force of her punch. "I'm not your fracking pilot! I just want to get the hell out of here!"

The canopy still scrolled out the schematics as it started to take in the parameters of the current person inside of it. Even as she watched in frustration, the cargo bay began to crack up around the mecha. She watched the metal bent, warp, and finally began to split for all of about thirty seconds until something must have opened up underneath her. The Frame slid against metal with a reverberating sound pouring into the cockpit before the G's began pulling at her and her stomach.

It rolled and spun ungainly like a comet rushing out of the sky. She always wondered what it would be like to screw up a low orbit insertion would be like if someone screwed the pooch on the drop and the pod tumbled to its demise, she just never thought it would be in her first free fall. She sat in as best as she could and forced her shoulders into the restraints as much as she could before she realized that limp was about as effective as rigid was when it came to slamming into the surface of the planet at somewhere approaching three hundred k.p.h.

"Biometric scans completed. Reinitializing system wide restart." The cold metallic voice of the machine chimed in as the Frame flipped over on its axis, spinning now in full view of the ground rushing up to catch her in its open armed embrace of death. "Engines online, Stabilizers powering up and compensating for tri vector roll."

She prayed to the God of Marines to let her land on her feet. Good Marines landed on their feet, anyone could walk away from a landing, but Marines never went anywhere unless it was feet first. "Come on, come on, power up you stupid tin box."

"Alarm: Approach vector is too steep, Landing is ill advised at current speeds. Advisement is to reapproach." The voice called out in a monotone, mocking her plight with information that was absolutely useless to her.

"If I knew how to pilot, I'd still be klunking around in an LEV." Basic forced her to learn how to man an LEV before being shipped out here, she had managed to scrape through but not by very much. Flying wasn't for her unless it was screaming in from above with fire rushing by her. "You're the A.I. system, pull yourself up."

"Safety of pilot now at critical stages." The voice was starting to take on an edge to it as it measured the ground kept coming closer and closer. "Auto Piloting systems engaging. Vector engines powering up and preparing for vector jump."

The engines fired from the back of the Frame as it righted itself and turned facing the sky, arms and legs splaying out to catch the atmosphere and attempt to slow itself down as it fired its engines in bursts. Diego gripped tightly to the orbs as her body jerked with the firing engines, hoping beyond hope that the ship could manage to make it down in one piece. Energy particles began to gather from in front of the cockpit and trail down behind the cockpit.

"Vector trap engines online, beginning vertical vector jump." Diego had heard that this was an experimental new way to jump short distances through pockets of space by folding space from one point to another. She didn't think she liked that idea, and she was about to find out what it was like.

Feet above the surface of the planet, an energy orb made of vector particles coalesced in front of the plummeting frame. She watched as the white light of the vector particles converged overtop of her and as she fell out the other side of the orb, unknown exactly how far she had traveled. The measurements were recalibrating for the sudden displacement and reassessing distance to the surface of the planet. The Frame flipped over, using small attitude adjustments placed in the shoulders and the feet pylons to recorrect a landing where she would come down on both of her feet.

The landing was still rough. She hit the ground at a speed that would have killed her in a normal LEV, yet she barely grunted when the Frame came to a sudden stop on the surface of the planet before all systems shut down and she felt the machine buckle under its own weight. The canopy still scrolled information of telemetry outside of the Frame itself, but all screens started popping up that simulations were over and everything was returning to stand by mode.

"You have got to be kidding me!" she yelled as the machine collapsed overtop of its legs and bent forward overtop of the cockpit, covering the sky and terrain with its upper body as it fell. She punched at the armrests and kicked the broken screen before her, this time breaking it off its bracket before she settled back into her seat and fumed. As she waited for someone to come and rescue her, she could only think of one thing to say.

"I am so getting court martialled for this."

* * *

"Tac Com confirms that the Frame has landed and is now immobile!" The pilots were calling back to Marsden and Dr. Genjiki as they struggled to get on their suits for outside travel. Because Rhea and the planet Saturn itself was so far away from the sun, traditional spacesuits could not function correctly without freezing up and breaking. They had to wear specially modified suits that could withstand the cold temperatures outside while still remaining mobile enough to be useable.

"Makes sense!" Marsden yelled for everyone in the ship to hear as he donned his helmet and keyed his throat mic with a vocal command. "We had it set for experimental mode when we shipped it. It most likely thought that the sudden break up of the cargo bay was a test for a high speed, low altitude jump into enemy territory."

"It was only supposed to activate if there was someone piloting the thing!" Dr. Genjiki shouted, making everyone cringe at the irate doctor. "I told you to keep your trained meat shields away from my machine!"

"My trained meat shields probably just saved your life, Doctor." Marsden dared him to speak as he glared hotly at him through his faceplate. "You're useless to us with a broken Frame. There would have been no more money, no more patience, and certainly no more time for you. On top of which, there is still a person inside of that Frame whether it is being piloted by someone or not!"

"A person you put in there against my better judgment!" Genjiki jabbed his gloved finger into Marsden's faceplate. "This is all your fault!"

"We're nearing the crash site, Sir." The co-pilot called to the men as the doorway into the piloting station was sealed and pressurized so that they would manage to live on when the men stepped outside from the back.

As the walkway swiveled down to the frigid surface of the planet, Marsden went first before the Doctor, offering the old man a hand before being pushed out of the way. Grumbling in abject indignation, Gejiki walked his way over to the collapsed machine and fought to get himself as close to the cockpit as he could. Marsden helped him as best as he could, though he made sure to keep an eye out for anyone else on the surface of the planet. The last thing they needed right now were tourists curious to see what was all the ruckus.

Opening a side panel on the cockpit, Genjiki reached inside the wiring and fiddled back and forth till he found the connectors that had been tagged the same color before attaching them and adjusting the frequency of his communications with that of the cockpit speakers.

"I am so getting court martialled for this." The bitter voice muttered as it sighed in frustration.

"If you've broken anything in there, court martial is the least of your problems!" Genjiki ranted as he beat on the canopy. Shaded to match the outer layer of the ship, it was too dark for him to see inside of it.

"What I'd like to break is the neck of the stupid scientist who made this falling death trap!" The woman yelled as fists reverberated off the inside of the canopy, punching at the only person she could barely see from her angle.

"As fun as this all is, children, can I suggest that we move along sometime today? This sunlight is giving me a terrible tan." Marsden mockingly rubbed at his arm, admiring how the snow was beginning to cover him in wind drift.

Muttering darkly under his breath, Gejiki turned away from the Frame and headed back for the shuttle that was nearby. Once both he and Marsden had situated themselves and thawed out slightly, he opened a line to the shuttle. "Pilot, can you hear me?" the doctor called, typing into a short laptop he had brought in case of emergencies.

"I am not a pilot, old man." The woman spat acid out from where she sat, yet her loathing of the title was plain as day.

"I don't care if you're the queen of Pluto and there are rings around Uranus!" The old man looked like he was about to blow a blood vessel. "I don't want you touching anything in there for the next few hours as I take control of the piloting by remote and get you out of there. Is that understood?"

"If it makes you shut up any faster, then by all means." The woman sounded resigned, but grateful for the help as Genjiki began to program in the commands for the auto system to reactivate and come under external control. The pilot and co-pilot of the shuttle watched as the mecha righted itself and stood upon the pylon legs before it rose slightly off the ground and assumed a tailing position behind them.

"At your leisure, gentlemen." Marsden called to them, signaling them to get underway.

"If the A.I. system was working properly, we wouldn't have to do this." Genjiki muttered to himself, unaware that Diego had heard him.

"What the hells been talking to me then if not your fracking brain in a box?" the girl asked irritated. The voice had rubbed her wrong ever since getting her in here.

"It talked?" Genjiki sounded stunned. If fact, he was flabbergasted. In all the time since trying to get the Frame space worthy, it had never once given a vocal affirmative.

"It does more than talk, it pilots like a rock falling out of Orbit!" Diego did not want to do this again. "Is there any way someone can let me out of here sooner than a few hours?"

Genjiki cut the audio out to the pilot in the Frame as he looked at Marsden with a spooked look on his face. "It's not ready for verbal communication yet." Genjiki explained to the confused Marsden. "I only programmed it for independent thought processes. I never gave it vocalization programming."

"Could it create its own vocalization algorithm?" Marsden asked, trying to justify for the doctor the possibility that improbable was still feasible.

"Do you have any idea how complex a voice algorithm is?" Genjiki asked, giving the thought just a cursory glossing over in his own head. "It's programmed for the basic piloting skills and self learning awareness like that of Jehuty and Idolo. Speaking should be way out of its ability to do." Genjiki thought darkly of one possibility that did come to mind. "You did say that the man was dead when you installed him, correct?"

"I said he was clinically dead, not totally brain dead." Marsden wasn't liking where this train of thought was going. "You don't think it could be Zevran, do you?"

"Do you have any other answer for it?" Genjiki asked as he stared at Marsden, daring him to come up with something more plausible.

"Um…" came the voice of Diego over the speakers, "Is anyone going to speak to me out there, or what?"


	3. Chapter 3

**I like the way this chapter turned out much better than the first two, but then again, you've got to start somewhere.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Rhea(saturn's moon) the base that may be up there at this very moment(I doubt it) or anything to do with Zone of the Enders**

* * *

Beginning Signal Initiation…

Searching for Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Continuing Playback…

* * *

"Well Doc, I've got the information you wanted." Marsden said as he made his way over to Genijiki who was sitting in the cockpit of the recently recovered Orbital Frame.

"It only took you a full day to get it." The very perturbed Doctor muttered as he typed furiously away at the laptop computer.

"We were running a few other things that were as important." Marsden shot back at the Doc, letting his face slip from the smile that usually perched there. He handed the paperwork in his hand to Genjiki with a little more speed than was needed, but he just felt the need to throw the Doctor's work in his face.

Genjiki took just the briefest of moments to look at Marsden with a withering glare before picking up the paperwork that had landed on the laptop and read over it. "At least the girl didn't do too much damage to the Frame." He muttered as he looked over the specs one more time for anything he may have missed.

"Well, now that you're not so unhappy, I think I should give you the other bad news." Marsden smiled down at Genjiki who looked up at him in confusion.

"This is bad news?" He glanced over the paperwork one more time. "The Frame worked fine for what it was meant to do, I don't see how this is bad news."

"See it as you want, but the other part I was talking about…" Marsden said, waving off the Doctors mutterings as he focused on the paperwork in front of himself. "We took the main part of the machine out of the Frame and started testing the staff here at the base for piloting, remember?"

"Intimately." Genjiki oozed distaste at remembering how he had been forced to gut the higher parts of the machine's brains out to be used on a mock up machine for pilots outside of the machine itself.

"A few of them could activate the test, and none of them could initialize the A.I. system." Marsden had crossed his arms over his chest and watched the reaction of the Doctor.

"Did you think a bunch of Neanderthals would be able to operate a system none of them have ever seen before?" Genjiki continued to go over the papers before him until he was satisfied before putting them to the side and began to type on the laptop once again. "I told you it was a pointless project."

"We wanted to be sure, so we hooked the girl to the test." Marsden continued and watched the Doctor's fingers stop for a moment before he continued. He didn't answer his acknowledgement or even his curiosity, so Marsden gave it to him with both barrels. "She not only managed to start the test Frame, but the A.I. system ran a full diagnostics on all the systems and even went so far as to begin lift off procedures before we shut down the system."

Marsden watched as the Doctor's face went from ghost white to deep purple. He even thought he saw a vein trying to burst free from the man's forehead.

"Don't tell me you plan on…" Genjiki began to spit only to stop as Marsden nodded.

"Until we can find someone else that your toy will take, she is to be given the pilot status." Marsden grimaced. The girl was supposed to be told the specifics as soon as someone could find her. Her commanding officer had not been happy that she had climbed into the Orbital Frame and even less happy that the cargo ship's hold had ruptured, spewing their supplies all over the frozen moon's surface.

"I don't get a say in this, do I?" Genjiki's voice was calm, but shaking with restrained rage. His eyes looked like they wanted to fly out of his head and stab someone.

"I'm not exactly thrilled with her either." Marsden spoke, trying to calm the old man down. "She wasn't the greatest flying an LEV, I can only imagine how much worse she's going to be flying this."

"She isn't touching this until she can pilot an LEV without some accuracy!" Genjiki nearly shrieked, grabbing hold of his laptop in both hands and nearly breaking it in two.

"Don't get your space shorts in a bunch, Doctor." Marsden said as he motioned for the Doctor to calm down some. "It's not like she's going to be piloting solely by herself, now is it?"

"The A.I. system will need a total overhaul if it's reacting to her and only her." Genjiki grabbed the lip of the cockpit and pulled himself out of it. He began marching off for the doors leading out to the rest of the base.

"If we did that, the A.I. system would be totally useless to us." Marsden followed on the heels of the Doctor. "It's self learning. You can't simply unlearn something once you learn it. If it's imprinted itself on her because of its first flight and self activation, then there's nothing that can be done about it."

"That's why it's getting a total overhaul." Genjiki said as he slammed his hand into a palm scanner next to the control room door. He waited just long enough for the machine to register that it truly was him before he barged into the near empty room. The staff on hand had worked with him before and knew not to bother him while he was pissed. "We can't have it attaching itself to one person when it's a multiple person unit."

"Then you intend on lobotomizing that man's head." Marsden said which brought the Doctor up short. "You do remember that the A.I. is the man inside of that machine, didn't you?"

Whirling around into Marsden's face, he threw a finger from the hip to nearly gouge out Marsden's left eye. "This is exactly why I didn't want anyone going near the Frame!!!"

"Things like this happen." Marsden said coolly, staring down at Genjiki's irate face. "It would have happened with the first person we would have put in there, so get over it." Genjiki made a sound in his throat as Marsden continued. "She is the designated pilot for your toy, get used to it."

Turning on his heel, Marsden walked back to the door and keyed the unlock sequence as Genjiki called out to him. "Where do you think you're going now? Planning on finding someone to take over for me already?"

Marsden looked over his shoulder. "That's a foregone conclusion, Doctor." He let that hit the Doctor before he threw his knife down in the ground. "A second rate scientist could do better than you could if you can only see this far ahead of yourself. No, I'm off to begin training my pilot for her up and coming mission."

* * *

Well, she hadn't been court martialled like she thought she was going to get.

In fact, this was cake compared to what she thought she was going to get.

"Pick those feet up!" Sergeant Domingez yelled from the back of a military jeep as he was driven before her. His dark skin clashed with the white of the surrounding world, making his African American heritage all the more apparent. When race mattered, it might have been extremely difficult for Domingez to reach Sergeant status without seeing combat on more than one foreign soil, or for exemplary action, like throwing himself on a grenade in the same foxhole as his commanding officer.

Now, he was just another Earther busting the proverbial balls of a PFC.

"There's still plenty of gas in this vehicle, Diego!" His angry shout called to her again as she grunted in misery and readjusted the straps to that hundred pounds of dead weight on her back. "You'll keep running till I run out of gas or you drop dead!"

Seeing as how there was a second man filling the vehicle up while it was running with the spare can that normally hung off the back of the vehicle that would be for a very long time. A third man who had just managed to squeak his way out of private and into the next rank was driving so the Sergeant could taunt her for all his worth until his voice went hoarse, direct for a canteen for water, and could continue for only that brief stretch of time.

Her ears wanted him to dry out already.

The driver reached down for the console and picked up the receiver for their portable communications. Vehicles didn't come standard with them in case they were lost during battle and parts salvaged. Whatever he heard made him slam on the brakes and hand the headset over to the Sergeant who about turned around and busted him back down to Private.

Diego stopped where she was, bending slightly under the weight of her pack as she panted in exhaustion. If she could remain in motion, the miles wouldn't affect her so bad. The moment she came to a halt, they rushed over her tired legs and seized hold of the muscles there, locking them in a grim sort of pain that burned forever.

"Diego!" The sergeant called out to her, and she moaned to herself as she looked up, hoping that they had not decided to start running her again. They had started some time ago, had she done twenty miles by now, or had it been thirty? "Drop your pack and get in! We're to report back to base triple time!"

She thanked whatever superior above for the mercy of her punishment being dropped for whatever more important cause call to her. She didn't think twice as she dropped her pack and jumped into the jeep next to her Sergeant, unafraid of the commentary she'd get for sweating bullets. "Congratulations, Diego." Her sergeant handed her the canteen he had left for himself. "You pushed yourself hard out there. I'm going to miss you in our platoon."

She had almost gotten the canteen to her lips when the sergeant had spoken, making her look at him in shock. "That was the base calling us." He explained to her as if she now outranked him. "You're no longer a leatherneck. You've just been upgraded to experimental pilot status."

* * *

The knock came to his door brought an early relief to him. Marsden didn't like doing any paperwork of any kind, yet it was still required of him from time to time. Diego's paperwork was in front of him, or he should say, her transfer paperwork was in front of him. He had almost put the sign of approval on it when the knock came.

"Enter." He called as he put his signature onto it, making it official.

The door slid open and in walked the very marine he had just been transferring. She approached and saluted crisply with a blank look on her face, awaiting for the acknowledgement of Marsden before she finished. "Private First Class Diego, reporting as ordered, Sir." She dropped her arm and awaited him to speak.

"At ease, Private." He motioned with his hand for her to stand down and she assumed the classic at ease position hard drilled into her since boot.

He looked her over, from head to foot. Moderately built at an easy five foot nine inches in her boots, probably an inch shorter than that out of them, she was of average build and look to him. Brown mousy hair that seemed to spike at the ends around her face and in the back made her look as if she was perpetually angry. Her face was held blank by training, but he could see around her eyes that she was quick to temper. He'd seen the lines around many a woman's eyes and had been the wrath of many of those same women when they used their tongue to cut a man down to less than anything worth mentioning.

His eyes roamed further down to the military jumpsuit she had must have just put on. Her face still looked like it was perspiring and her chest was still heaving, so she must have come directly here from whatever punishment she had been given by her platoon leader. The flight suit probably meant that someone had heard about her transfer and wanted to give it to her as a sign of the job she was going to be required to do from now on. His eyes passed over her moderate bust and adequate hips to the desktop before roaming back up and back to that face.

"Before you ask, Private," Marsden thought he should make sure she knew the position she was in, "there were no mistakes and we are not going to transfer you out no matter how bad your previous scores were." Her face crinkled slightly as he watched the irritation rankle her. "Also note that no matter how many times you crack up out there, transfer is still not an option. You are in this project until you die."

Hate oozed out of her eyes at him for a moment before she assumed eyes forward. Oh yes, she was a fighter. He opened her personnel folder. "Diego Anjelica Kolburn. Born February seventeenth, 2174, on Antilia." He glossed over her parents names, and moved on to her psych tests, "Psych tests hold that you are not only confrontational, in the most simplest way of saying it, you hate everything."

Her shoulders seemed to pull up slightly at the supposed compliment, and even if it wasn't a compliment, it was to her. "You were exactly what the marines were looking for, and I think you would have made an excellent hell jumper. However, my opinion doesn't give me anything worth mentioning." He leaned back in his chair and gave her a level look. "To alleviate your hatred, or better yet, to give it something to attack, I'm going to give you exactly the thing you want to know."

Her eyes did lock onto him then, and fire burned deep inside of her. Her eyes shone with determination and they promised that whoever gave her this 'promotion' would regret it. "The A.I. chose you." Marsden uttered for her. Her eyes Flashed dangerously and her lips worked as she tried to give voice to the anger seething inside of her, but she wisely closed her mouth and looked ahead of herself, this time in hatred.

"I have been given the unique opportunity of training you in space simulation combat." Marsden said, which made her brow drop dangerously once again. "By the look on your face, you can already guess what kind of space combat I'm talking about."

"Permission to speak freely, Sir?" Diego clipped acidic words spat with her decorum.

"As of right now, You aren't a part of the military so I wouldn't mind if you spoke frankly, no matter how much I'm going to regret saying that." Marsden spoke clearly, although he rubbed his head in sympathy for the headache he was about to get.

"With all due respect, Sir," she stressed the word, wanting to make her opinion known that she was still military no matter what, "I refuse to assist in any training you wish to give me."

"That is your decision, Private." Marsden said as he pulled out a second paper and started to fill it out, but before he started writing, he hit a button on his desk. Within seconds, two M.P. soldiers walked into the door behind Diego and stood at ease, waiting for their orders. "Gentlemen, Marsden began as he started to fill out the paperwork in front of him, "The young lady has declined our offer, please escort her to her cell that she will be borrowing from us indefinitely."

The soldiers reached for her arms but before they could grab her, she slammed her hands down onto the top of his desk, making his pen skip. "If I don't help you, I go to prison, if I do help you, I have to pilot that piece of junk mech in the bay that nearly got me killed!"

Marsden looked up into her irate face. "There's always option three." He offered before looking down at his paper again.

"And that would be?" She snidely asked as she stood up in front of him. The sound of a hammer clicking into place and the feel of a hard metallic object with a circle in the front was placed to the back of her head. Instantly, she had a whole different kind of sweat pouring down her face.

"Not in the back." Marsden said as he glanced up. "You'll spray me with whatever she has in that head of hers. Shoot from the side."

The metal object was removed from the back and then a gun out of the periphery of her vision was placed to the side of her head. She glanced just far enough over to see metal before she looked down at Marsden's face.

"Your decision, Private." Marsden asked as he continued to fill out the paperwork in front of him.

* * *

"Well, she took the position." Marsden smiled as he walked into the hanger holding the mech in place.

"You didn't give her many options from the way I hear it." Genjiki muttered as he continued to re-install the major parts of the A.I. system into the control panel once again. "When will you start her training?" he wondered aloud as he grunted softly, hooking up an especially hard to reach cable.

"She's training right now." Marsden said as he leaned up against the cockpit, gazing upward at the face plate of the machine so very high above both of them. "Give her some time, and she'll be ready to fly your toy here." He patted the machine softly.

"Would you please stop calling it a toy?!" Genjiki jerked out of the cavity in the nose cone of the cockpit. "It does have a name."

"It does?" Marsden looked at Genjiki with mild surprise.

"Anjety." Genjiki muttered, looking to the chest plate of the unit as he spoke if with a sad expression.

Marsden looked to the chest plate then back at Genjiki, not understanding the reference. "Well, if you get to name the Frame, then I'll name the A.I." Genjiki gave Marsden a dirty look. "Hey, I just call them as I see them…" He raised his hands in front of himself to stave off the wrath of the Doctor, who merely nodded and waited. Marsden put his chin between his thumb and index finger for a moment as he thought before snapping his fingers and looking to Genjiki.

"We'll call the A.I. Zevran." The Doctor looked like he was about to get upset, but then shook it off with a shrug and a snort.

"It fits." Was all he said as he leaned back into the machine and hooked the remaining wires together.

* * *

**Guess it takes all kinds, doesn't it? I did do a little research for the name for the unit by googling Jehuty and Anubis with Egyptian Mythology and found a name in reference with Jehuty called Andjety. Do some searching as well and see why the name is kinda appropriate.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I actually had this finished some time ago, but because I was called into town on a few nights, I couldn't get the last few paragraphs in as fast as I wanted. I should be paid for my procrastination, it is an artform.**

**Disclaimer: ZOE is rightfully owned by their respectful companies and played on the Playstation 2 which is also rightfully owned by its own company. Any similarities to said titles is strictly coincidental and is meant only as flattery.**

* * *

Beginning Signal Initiation…

Searching for Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Continuing Playback…

* * *

"This is not a combat situation, Diego. Do not rush into those turns." Marsden tried directing again to the pilot in the simulator. She was attempting to take a steep bank as directed by the simulation nav point on the screen, however she was forcing the turn too soon and not getting enough speed up.

Basically, she was getting frustrated.

"This is exactly why I don't fly an LEV." She muttered to herself as she made an ugly cornering maneuver.

"How is she doing?" Genjiki walked into the command room. He came up next to Marsden watching the girl try to come from above and swoop down to just above the ground. Instead, her foot clipped a chuck of simulated ice surface and the sudden drag from the surface brought her face first into the ice surface of Rhea.

"She's getting there." Marsden said happily as he reset the simulation while Diego shouted obscenities from her seat.

Genjiki sighed darkly. Tapping into the console, he keyed the headset on Diego to activate once she had calmed down some. "Pilot Diego, we're bringing online a co-pilot for you." Marsden looked at him strangely. "You should find it a little easier to pilot now."

"You finished it?" Marsden asked lightly, wondering.

"I gave it a basic voice algorithm, adding to the one I found there." He stressed the word found, but otherwise kept typing. "This will allow her to at least get an idea of what she's going to be dealing with on a regular basis while flying Anjety."

"If she's going to be flying with the voice, why don't we give her a mock up of the real thing?" Marsden asked while looking on at the doctor.

"Because we don't know how the real thing will fight?" Genjiki snidely commented as he turned on the A.I. system in the simulator.

Diego wondered what the two men in the control room were saying to each other and how long it would take for them to get started whatever it was that they were doing up there. Maybe they were comparing brainpans.

"Zevran Systems, Online. Good morning, Pilot." Her computer suddenly spoke at her, making her jerk and look down at the panels in front of herself. A holographic circle with a slight wedge in the bottom portion of it had a Z in it and a light streamed around the circle, depending on how loud or soft the voice was.

"Uh…Good morning, um…" Diego wondered what she should call it, only to realize she was talking to a machine. "Get it together, Diego. It's only a machine."

"I am not 'only a machine', pilot." The voice with a slight masculine tone to it corrected her. "I am Zevran, the A.I. computer of your Orbital Frame."

Diego eyed the machine a second before keying her communications for the command room. "Is the scientist still there?" Genjiki came back to the window looking down at her. "You didn't need to program it with a lip, Y'know."

"I didn't 'program it with a lip.'" Genjiki snapped at Diego. "If he is giving you lip, then educate him. He's a self learning A.I. system. He only knows what you tell him."

Marsden watched the interaction between the doctor and Diego before breaking into their conversation. "I think we should leave Pilot Diego to introductions. The doctor and I will return in half an hour. You two should learn who each of you are."

"I'm doing no such thing!" Genjiki shrieked as Marsden took him by the arm and keyed the communications off. He then guided the doctor out of the room, leaving Diego with her 'partner'.

"Men." Diego muttered under her breath. The machine sat quietly in front of her while she stared at the controls. "Well, I was ordered to introduce myself to you." She couldn't believe how stupid she felt right now. "What do you know about me?"

The machine gave her a thorough answer. "You are Pilot Diego Anjelica Kolburn, born February seventeenth, 2174 on space station Antilia, Parents are…"

"A machine can pull that information up anywhere, what else do you know about me." She didn't want to discuss her parents, not with anyone.

"Personnel records show that within the first two weeks of joining the Space Marines, you assaulted a Lance Corporal." The machine spoke as if by rote, clinically profession with no variation to its voice. "You were given a psychological evaluation that showed your high aggressiveness and distaste for the male gender."

"Do you understand what that means?" Diego crossed her arms smartly over her chest and stared down at the machine. It remained silent so she figured she should enlighten it to the facts of life. "Cross me and I'll break you."

"That would be impossible." The A.I. spoke to her, making her eyebrow twitch. "My A.I. programming is unable to be altered by the Pilot. You do not have the necessary training nor the clearance to access my programming."

"I'm talking about consoles, control sticks, engine parts." Diego ranted as she pointed at the various things she could get access to. "You'll be begging for me to not hurt you."

The machine made a tone before continuing. "Again, that would be impossible. The Orbital Frame in which I am housed in cannot be hurt by simple sabotage as it is under guard at all hours of the day. The only time you may have an opportunity to attempt to sabotage is while in flight, however, it would be unwise to sabotage yourself in flight as it would make landing difficult."

Diego grit her teeth before she remembered she was dealing with a machine. Superiority was beyond a box of parts with a mouth.

"I have noted your intended attempt at intimidation and have duly noted it in your records." The machine toned again.

"My records?" Diego muttered to herself before she leaned forward and slapped both hands onto the console in front of her, grabbing it tightly. "You mean you put it in my psych report?!"

"That is correct." The A.I. confirmed. "It is important to keep all records up to date. Information is the first part of a successful battle."

"You have no right!" Diego shouted at the machine as she hauled back her fist.

"I have higher authority than you do, which gives me clearance to modify your records at will." The A.I. calmly spoke, as if the fist coming at it wasn't a threat. As the translucent terminal cracked with the force of the punch, the screen blurred as the voice continued. "I am to be your back up, so I must make sure that all records of your flight and personal actions are kept up to date."

"Frag That!" Diego said as she reached for the hatch. She thumbed the release so that the simulation unit would open, only it didn't toggle or even unlock. "What the hell is going on in here?!"

"We were ordered to stay and evaluate each other." The machine calmly spoke, letting her know what was going on. "I have taken control of environmental controls and have prevented the hatch from opening."

Effectively making her a prisoner in the very machine she was supposed to be learning how to fly in. "I'd rather go to prison than deal with this." Diego muttered as she sat back down into her seat, hands coming to rest on her eyes as she sighed darkly.

"Query." The A.I. chimed as it recorded her actions. "Would prison not prevent you from flying?"

She looked hatefully down at the machine in front of her. "You have access to my personnel records, access them and tell me what my previous position was before taking the one I have now?"

The machine was quiet for a second as it reviewed her files once again. "Private Diego Anjelica Kolburn, 282nd division, 74th brigade, squad B, position grunt."

"Exactly, which is why I would prefer jail to flight." She laid back into her seat and placed a hand over her eyes again. "I got into this whole mess when I got in you in the first place."

The machine was silent for a moment. "I do not have records of you ever having piloted Anjety."

She glanced under her hand at the cracked display. "Your information was probably altered to say that it never happened." She put her hand overtop of her eyes once again. "So much for keeping accurate records."

The machine was silent for many minutes afterwards, eventually the silence breaking from the communications coming back online from outside. "Have you kids been playing nice?" Marsden asked happily as he smiled down at Diego.

"All systems are within tolerance levels." The A.I. spoke to the command deck, closely followed by Diego. "Can we hurry this up? I want to get a shower eventually."

"Well, you managed to break your terminal, but that shouldn't be too bad if you simply listen to your partner." Marsden ran the diagnostics for the simulator quickly, only giving the interior a scan. "Focus on what's in front of you while the A.I. calls out throttle and direction, Pilot. Zevran, you will give direction based on the view of the cockpit in relation to verbal command."

"Understood." The A.I. spoke calmly as Diego began take off procedures. "Zevran will assist."

"Back seat drivers." Diego thought darkly as she began once again.

* * *

"She did better with Zevran giving her verbal direction." Marsden offered Genjiki while the doctor went over the new systems that the A.I. had created, literally checking the growth of the A.I.

"She'd do extremely better if the machine flew itself and she sat there for the flight." Genjiki muttered as he modified a number or two.

"If the A.I. for any reason developed problems like Jehuty did on Antilia, we'd be messed." Marsden commented solemnly as he played with the bottle of water in his hand. He leaned against the cockpit of Anjety and looked up at the faceplate again, making sure for his eyes to linger just for a moment over the chest of the unit. "She has to learn how to fly for herself."

Genjiki muttered as he sat in the cockpit, typing away at his laptop. They didn't speak for awhile until the doctor decided to break the quiet. "I'm not so sure how wise it is to only give the A.I. only virtual information. Real life data would be much more helpful to creating a self aware A.I. program that could act on its own."

"Having an A.I. like Zevran working with someone from the start will give him the needed control over it than letting it run off on its own." The doctor looked over the side at Marsden and he craned his head to Genjiki. "If the A.I. is working with someone, it will have an eventual need to pilot with someone. We could even use that as a failsafe on a suicide mission, like what happened with Jehuty at Aumaan."

"So that's why you wanted them to work together." Genjiki muttered softly as he returned his eyes to the computer screen.

"It would make for a more practical weapon." Marsden offered as he opened his water bottle and sipped from it.

"I think playing God is more than enough for me." Genjiki commented as he closed the laptop and made to leave the cockpit, Marsden falling into step next to him.

* * *

"No." Diego commented flatly once again to the communications in her room. She had finally managed to shed her flight suit some time ago, had her shower, even an M.R.E. had tasted good to her. When she had gotten the call from Marsden offering to hook the A.I. from the ship into the base, he was kind enough to offer her the decision.

"And what is so wrong with hooking Zevran into the base while stationed here?" Marsden called sweetly through the communication port on the wall.

"Other than having to deal with it enough for the day." Diego thought to herself. Instead, she said, "You've already hooked it up to the base, so why are you asking me?"

Marsden could be heard chuckling on the other end. "Well, if you know that much, then I won't tell you how to talk to him then."

The communications shut off abruptly, a sign that Marsden had done his job. She looked around at her room once again. Small enough to hold her bed and a single desk with computer, it was slightly bigger than a closet. She had enough room to pace four steps before she would have to turn around and start again. Right now, she was trying to figure out if dying in that cargo bay would have been better.

As if wondering had brought about its activating, her com chimed, signaling an incoming call. She keyed it after only a second. "Diego." She called to it, wondering who next could ruin her day.

"You do not want to associate with me, Pilot." The cool voice of the A.I. system called through the speaker on the wall and her hand reached for the toggle, switching off the communication between her and the virtual life.

"I think that's an understatement." Diego muttered as she dropped her hand. She might be reprimanded again for ignoring a superior officer, whether it was alive or not. "What do you want, A.I.?"

"I do not have a specific thing I wished to discuss with you, Pilot." The voice spoke gently, though she motioned in exasperation at the com on the wall before she went to lie down. "I only wished to ascertain your reluctance to pilot. I will summarily delete myself."

She shot up out of her bed faster than she thought possible. "What the hell are you talking about?" Diego nearly shouted into the com, staring at it as if it held the answers to the universe.

"Your aversion to piloting Anjety is caused by the creation of Zevran." The A.I. calmly replied. "If Zevran is removed from Anjety, the Pilot will become more effective."

"You're not making any sense." She could just see the blame she was going to get for the A.I. killing itself. Jail would be the least of her problems.

The A.I. played back the conversation from the docking bay where Anjety was placed in storage while she was retaught piloting. Marsden and the doctor's voice could clearly be heard talking about suicide missions and piloting, mostly like that was exactly the mission that was going to be planned for them. Diego glared at the com unit.

"Through examination of the conversation, I estimate that a suicide mission is the most likely option for the Frame." The A.I. came in when the playback ended. "If Zevran is removed from the system, Anjety cannot be used for the mission."

Diego shook her head. "That's some weird logic, but you're wrong if you think they wouldn't go through with the mission. They'll just find someone else to do what we should have done in the first place."

The com was silent for a long time, long enough that if she didn't see the light on the toggle still on, she would have assumed the A.I. had gone through with its planned destruction. "You are correct." The A.I. commented in its neutral tone. "It is an incorrect assumption for me to assume that my destruction would cancel the mission from occurring."

She relaxed where she stood, feeling as if she had somehow dodged a bullet that time.

"I will run a diagnostics on my system. Thank you for your time, Pilot." The com shut off afterwards. She sighed as she rolled back into her bed, little more than a cot. She was already seeing the problems she was going to have with being this thing's Pilot, it was like taking care of a child.

She would have probably been better off with it destroying itself, but at least now it knew what kind of hell it was putting her through. Still, wanting to kill itself, she was just wondering what it would try while she was in flight with it. Hopefully, it wouldn't decide to throw itself into the path of an oncoming asteroid.

Laying in bed with her green fatigue pants and a green tank top, she thought about the conversation that the doctor and Marsden had with each other. From the sound of the conversation, they were using the machine not only to help her pilot, but to give incentive to the machine to learn how to operate with a person, and unable to pilot by itself without one. It didn't make sense that you would teach an A.I. how not to operate on its own but seeing as it was suicidal, she could understand.

What she didn't understand is why the doctor had said that he didn't want to play God. What was it that he didn't want to play God at? Also, what did he play God at to begin with to make him feel as strongly as he did. There were definitely secrets being held about this project that she wasn't being informed about, things that didn't add up, but especially things she wasn't privy to. She wondered what else there was being held from her, important things, before she closed her eyes and tried to get as much sleep in as she could before being called in for more training.


	5. Chapter 5

**I told you, I should get paid good money for my procrastination.**

**Disclaimer: Rich people work to get rich, which why I'm poor and use their ideas for my own stuff. None of what I write here has been allowed to be used for any purposes other than sharing what I would have made money off of if I had come up with the thought first. Zone of the Enders is owned by someone other than me.**

* * *

Beginning Signal Initiation…

Searching for Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Continuing Playback…

* * *

"Security has gotten tight around here." Genjiki muttered as he watched an armed patrol head down the hall while he and Marsden turned into the command center for the test simulations. A month had passed since the first testing had started to Diego and Zevran and they had progressed, but they haven't excelled at any one thing in particular.

"Since com traffic came in not too long ago about the Urenbeck Catapult that's being shipped out to us for easier space travel to the inner planets, they're afraid that information has gotten back to the remnants of Bahram that a new Orbital Frame is being constructed to hunt down and finish them off once and for all." Marsden went over the last few minutes of the simulated data being recorded of Diego's flight skills before he turned back to the doctor.

"Any of that information true?" Genjiki asked, looking for any tell tale signs on Marsden's face for a lie.

"I just get them built." Marsden shrugged dramatically. "What they do with it is their business."

Genijiki turned toward the computers, thinking to himself how that answer sounded so much like a politician to him. He looked up at their flight, watching as they did maneuvers back and forth, evading energy shots that came up from a simulated surface. They were doing only evasions so far, reconnoitering deciding viable targets and beginning an attack run.

"What would happen if Bahram made an attempt on getting Anjety?" Genjiki asked, worried what kind of reaction would be necessary for all of them.

"The base would be triggered to self destruct within five minutes time." He spoke calmly, arms still crossed over his chest. "I carry a data pad on me that will not only activate the self destruct system, but open up the information of the data banks. If the right code isn't put into the pad or any terminal on the base when accessing the information for this confidential program, a silent self destruct starts counting down till…" Marsden's hand motioned like a flower blooming, or a building suddenly blowing outward from tons of explosives underneath its protective dome.

"How many people know this code?" Genjiki asked, wetting his lips.

"You're looking at him." Marsden said, thumbing to himself.

Genjiki shuddered to himself as he turned back to the computers. "I work for a bunch of lunatics." He muttered darkly, typing away for more in depth statistics.

* * *

"Enemy fire from four, five, and seven o'clock low." Zevran commented with little emotion as Diego adjusted course once again. Piloting was getting better for her, but she didn't feel comfortable with it just yet. Zevran was more reactionary to her, but it was still a machine and never reacted to anything she did or when she made mistakes.

"I am detecting incoming enemy craft directly behind us. I have identified them as Raptor Orbital Frames." Zevran gave a view directly aft of them. "I do not detect an I.F.F. signature from the frames. They do not respond to any of my communications. Enemy frames will be within attack range within thirty seconds."

"I'd rather we stay and fight." Diego said as she cut thrust and turned in place. She could now eye the nearly skeleton like frames for herself, thinking they looked like some gangly birds of prey flocking to her as if she was a cadaver. Their arms ended in distended energy blades meant for close range combat, but she wasn't about to put it past the Doctor or Marsden to have some kind of projectile weaponry coming from them.

She wasn't too far off as one stopped in flight and clasped its bladed extremities together before rearing back and thrusting its blades toward her. Something like an energy tipped projectile lofted with an arc through the air and over its two friends as it came toward her. She dodged t easily and came at the front two, switching to melee combat as the blades switchbladed out into position.

She blocked and pushed the two past her as she leveraged through them like a wedge, coming at the immobile Raptor that was just starting to come at her again. Apparently, firing that projectile weapon had immobilized it, or drained too much energy before it could get back moving once more. She flicked her bladed hands forward, catching the tip of the head that angled over the ocular sensor, getting the head to snatch back on reflex as she brought the other hand around in a spin, cutting the so called neck and separating the head from the body. She used the thrusters to quickly dodge to the side as the two raptors she had pushed past turned and began coming at her, even as their brethren fell from the sky and blew up within feet of dropping.

She turned to her left, cutting all her engines and drifting planet bound before finishing her turn and reactivating her thrusters , propelling herself out of the way of the twin blades that had come close to striking the legs. Thrusting herself down and to the side once again, she hit the brakes hard and brought up the Vector Shot, a large globe of energy displaced by the Vector engine onboard. Launching it back at the attacker, she retracted the blade just enough to punch the energy orb back the way she had come. At close range, the Raptor blew apart in a spray of energy and parts.

The third Raptor had taken a more round about approach, firing energy shots from its bladed hands. She rolled and turned, spinning outward as she gained altitude toward the Raptor. Before it could lock on to her, she used the extra thrusting power of her Vector engine to boost her up immediately in front of the Raptor. It had time to tilt its head to the side in confusion before her bladed hand pierced the ocular orb and twisted, ending its robotic life.

Beams of energy lanced upward from below, causing the shields around her to flicker and the warning sirens to shriek. She continued her upward ascent as she twisted between the blades, the Frame peering down at the two Mummy type Frames that had appeared out of nowhere. Arching the Frame backwards, she cut her engines only enough to begin a controlled descent before punching them to full once more, spinning around the beams of energy that were trying to track her. She altered her descent, turning herself enough that she had placed one of the Frames between her and the second as she accessed the Vector engine again.

Training the particles created from the Vector engine along the blade, she pushed the particles in the air out of the way as she turned the blade into something sharper than normal. Spinning in place, she cut the Mummy through its guts, tearing into two ragged pieces. The second Mummy turned toward her and detecting the termination of its ally, charged its beam weapons for a prolonged shot.

She didn't give it time as she grabbed the upper half and tossed it bodily into its partner, causing the beams to go off angle and allowing her to close in. She reached forward and focused the Vector engine to create a displaced pocket in front of it right where the Mummy was positioned. With a sound of wrenching metal, she switched the Vector engine from pushing particles to pulling them into a singularity. The Mummy was pulled tighter and tighter into a single spot as its mass was compacted down to something the size of a car before she stopped.

The world faded out as the simulation came to an end, the cockpit of the Frame the only thing not altered in the slightest as virtual texturing shut down and all systems returned to their standby modes. Needless to say, training was over for the day.

Sighing in her seat, she crossed her arms and looked at the Heads Up Display that she had begun to think of as Zevran. "What happened?" Diego calmly, yet firmly asked as she leveled a hot glare at the screen.

Zevran's circle came up and began to move as it spoke. "I did not detect the Mummy type Frames until they had fired on us, whether by programmed design or cloaking technology. I did not anticipate their arrival and therefore did not expect them to be there."

"You're a machine. You're supposed to be prepared for everything." Diego said as she wondered once again how broken this thing was.

"I am unsure as to how it occurred as well." Zevran spoke with a slight sound of curiosity in its vocal pattern. "The only logical conclusion is that I was…distracted." It's slightly male voice seemed to speak it plainly, yet it did sound as if it was human at that time as it once again went over the fight.

"Next time, keep your eye on the scanner." Diego rubbed her hand against her forehead, frustrated for dealing with this child of a machine.

"I do not have an 'eye'." The machine spoke as if being sarcastic.

* * *

Months went by as the Urembeck Catapult was slowly constructed piece by piece. They had all the time in the world training and getting up to flight capability, which they managed to get one week before the catapult itself was scheduled to be finished. With most of the people working on the catapult military staff and personnel from their base, Genjiki and Marsden both gave the go ahead for them to get space flight in.

Diego flew upward, leaving Rhea's surface behind as both her and Anjety took their first big steps into a world that they were not totally prepared for.

"We have entered a low orbit above Rhea's base." Zevran commented as attitude thrusters fired. "Synchronizing drift and spin to match Rhea's orbital spin."

"Alright, you two, now for the fun part." Marsden commented from the communications that were being piped into the cockpit from behind Diego's head. "We want to see how fast Anjety can go, so we've cleared space in front of you to the under construction Urenbeck Catapult that should be just visible to the naked eye."

Diego didn't bother trying to squint to see the miniscule station. She keyed up a camera to bring up a display of the distant station and mark it on her nav. com.

"It takes a standard freighter to traverse from that distance to us about thirteen hour's space travel time." You could hear the smile on Marsden's face. "Let's see if you can get there and back within that time. I'd hate to downgrade both of you to shipping cargo."

"Tests, tests, and more tests." Diego muttered as she angled Anjety toward the station and throttled up to full, diverting power from the Vector engine to the main engines and pushed the speeds up as fast as she could.

"We are tested all the time in everything we do." Zevram calmly spoke, as if trying to settle the pilot down with a tidbit of wisdom.

"I got a suggestion for you." Diego said short and succinctly to the machine as she gave minor adjustments to the controls. "Dump the philosophy section of your memory core, before I do."

"You do not have accurate enough training to dump only the philosophy section I have recently downloaded from the base." Zevran countered, calmly stating the obvious.

"You're right, I don't." Diego said as the station began to grow in front of her. "I'd just delete everything till I found it. And if you think I don't know how to access your memory core, I know it's in your upper torso behind the main chest plate of this frame. I'll just open a port where I can get to it and pump a clip into it until it was deleted."

Zevran was quiet for a few moments as it took in this moment of clarity. "I see you have been studying the internal configuration of this Frame." He said calmly, if a bit cooler than usual.

"You'd be amazed at the need to learn when you have an A.I. that knows everything." Diego muttered softly as the station grew larger before them, now almost the proper size.

"Congratulations, you traveled a distance of almost a million miles in close to thirty minutes." Marsden happily called to them as Diego brought down their speed slowly. "You should see before you lights shining in a path." Diego looked around slowly before the lights began to come on in exactly the way Marsden was saying. "This is an obstacle course we set up specifically just for you two with some help from a few space walkers and your friendly neighborhood UEV."

"Plotting course." Zevram chimed as a holographic slalom course began to superimpose itself against the lights.

"There is hanging debris in there, rocks and the sort tethered to various beams and struts." Genjiki's voice came on afterward, the cold efficient one of the mad duo that ran this project. "Your sensors will not pick up the rocks themselves, you will have to fire as best as you can guess. "Just don't damage the station any more than necessary. They want to finish in the next few days and not repair what we do to it."

"Great," Diego muttered as she gnashed her teeth, "I always wanted to shoot blindly at things I can barely see out here."

"We could always blindfold you." Marsden 'helpfully' suggested.

"Targeting Recticle enabled." Zevram helpfully called out as a vaguely triangular shape appeared on the screen. The corners had been rounded off and clipped at the center, the ends pointing toward the center.

"Well this is new." Diego watches the icon swivel from side to side and up to down with her hand control on the slightly round control toggles. She squeezes her hand down on the right one and her right arm comes up, switching to melee on command before she relaxes her grip and allows the blade to slide back into its slotted position.

"You may begin at your own discretion." Genjiki called, signaling the beginning of the new test.

* * *

Diego was trying to relax back at the barracks, taking a shower after nearly spending eighteen consecutive hours inside of that flying death trap. The course they had made out of the space station took one flythrough to get the feel of the course before she had attempted to hit any of the asteroids that had been tethered to the girders. Apparently, they had calibrated the weapon output to less than one percent to make sure that her shots wouldn't damage without telling her so that she would think she would damage the place. If she knew her shots would barely scuff the metal, she would have gone hog wild, but she guessed that was the point.

"Private Diego." Her com system cut on, the voice of Zevran calling to her over the sound of the shower.

She grit her teeth in blind anger, pushing it down for the time being. She had to remind herself that a machine didn't know anything of privacy, but still…

"What is it?" She called harshly, wondering what it would ask her about today.

"I would like to know something about yourself, if I may." Zevran asked with only a slight variation in its vocal pattern, showing a bit of curiosity in the sound it made. Grunting her acknowledgement, it continued. "Why is it that you asked in your personnel records to be addressed by your first name instead of your last? It is an uncommon occurrence in the armed service to be addressed by one's first name instead of their last."

She stopped what she was doing as a memory flashed across her thoughts, one that drew out all the heat of the shower and all feeling with it. "I decided to separate myself from my previous self." She flatly commented, returning to rinsing her hair out. "I didn't like who I was and decided that when I joined the marines I would leave that life and that name behind me."

"Is it common to disassociate oneself from their past?" Zevran asked, as if inspecting the thought in depth.

"How the hell should I know?" Diego snapped, slapping the off toggle on the panel for the water dispenser. She grabbed for her towel and began to scrub herself dry in irritation.

Zevran didn't speak after that and she had to peer through the pane of protective glass to look at the com panel to see if he had simply shut off, or was still connected. Seeing the light still on, she sighed to herself. "Why don't you ask the doctor about head cases?" she offered, really not wanting to try to teach psychology to this thing.

"I was ordered to assist with Pilot Diego. I was also programmed to not question a command from a superior officer." Zevran replied as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

"Orders." Diego muttered as she tossed the towel into the chute for dirty laundry and took her undergarments in hand. "A good soldier knows when to listen to orders and when to second guess the orders given to them."

A void of silence seemed to emerge from the com unit as she slid her fatigues on one piece as a time, feeling her marines mentality slip on as her clothing brought her peace. She smirked at the speaker, imagining the short circuiting she had caused in that machine's processing center. For something that could never think beyond itself, she had just told it basically that sometimes it was possible to ignore orders.

"That is very…illogical." Zevran commented before cutting off the com unit. She smirked in triumph at the unit before heading out to the training area. She figured some calisthenics would make her feel all the more Marine.

* * *

The day of the activation of the Urembeck Catapult finally arrived at 0500 hours EST (Earth Standard Time) and was proceeding smoothly, signal pathways bridging the space in minutes what would take months to travel from one place to another as the Catapult was calibrated and locked into its counterpart orbiting nearby Antilia near Jupiter. Once it was synchronized with the system that linked Jupiter to Mars and Earth, then they could start populating even further outward into space and make room for those who wanted to get away from the memory of the fighting that had nearly destroyed relations between Mars and Earth.

As those in the station itself sent the calibration commands to the thrusters and maneuvering rockets mounted on the huge scaffolding, the Space Marines manning UEV's took up defensive positions around it in case some long range vehicle had managed to fly its way out this far.

"Why are we out here watching this thing again, anyways?" Corporal Mendosa questioned for the third time in as many hours.

"Keep your space suit loose, Ladies." The lead sergeant called out over the com. "They've only got a few more minutes left aligning the catapult. Then we can all go home and get ourselves a bit of R and R right after our ten mile march."

Mendosa moaned his bad luck that their sarge was such a hard ass for 'constant vigilance'. He had claimed that he had been apart of the heaviest part of the Auuman raid force that had taken and ultimately defeated Bahram and their leader, Nohman. He couldn't see how someone like that could have been allowed a posting anywhere near a battle area, unless he was going to order the enemy into running until they surrendered.

As if that thought was the cue to activate, the catapult activated from this side, sending its transfer signal just before opening up a distortion in the caged area where the ships would arrive and transfer out at and sent the distortion along its way to the other side. Theory had it that if there was a conflicting mass sent from one side toward another mass of distorted space, the larger mass would obliterate the smaller as if it had never been there. He didn't want to be on the receiving end on a mistake like that, especially when he was the fly on someone else's windshield.

"And that's that." The com opened for one of the technicians in the space station. "Thank you once again, gentlemen, for coming out here for the grand opening of our intergalactic highway. We hoped you enjoyed the show." Mendosa smiled, mentally hearing his sarge cussing out the smart mouth technician as they jokingly went about their jobs. "We should be seeing our first customers in…?"

Alarms started going off in the background from the speaker of the open com from the station as all the Marines stopped in their pull out and turned back toward the station in confusion.

The speakers continued to playback the sounds of the tech's in the background as they scrambled to find out what was causing the problems. "What happened?!" The smart mouthed tech shouted in the background.

"We just received an incoming signal, source unknown!" A second tech in the background shouted as the sound of panic began to ensue.

"Head's up, Ladies." The sergeant ordered as he began assuming the worse. "Loose net formation around the exit point of the catapult, safeties off." The UEV's started to spread out in a ragged hub, the twenty well trained machines setting up to blow away whatever was about to come through.

"Arrival in five seconds!" The smart mouth tech said as the sounds of held breath came over everyone, the golden hued light of a metatron transport uncompressed in the hub.

"Mines!" Someone called over the traffic, one of the men seeing what the others couldn't over the flash before the proximity mines detected the UEV's and detonated, rattling the workers in the cage and causing the marines to evade the shockwave of the explosion as best as they could.

"Report!" The sergeant called over the com to his men, hoping a few managed to survive.

"We've got a second inbound, Origin Unknown! Arrival in five seconds!" The com to the techs was somehow still active enough to come through the static in his ears. Mendosa winced as his screen seemed to flash with the golden light of another distortion expanding into normal space inside of the catapult, followed by the sounds of screaming as beam weapons shot past his screen.

His controls wouldn't respond, hoping beyond hope that it was just a computer malfunction as he tried in desperation to right himself and at least limp his way back to base. Hearing the last sounds of all but the technicians cutting out one by one, he desperately thought of his options. "Rhea base, this is Corporal Mendosa, do you read?" The com started to get panicky as the technicians started to shout in fear before the sounds of gunfire could be heard. He prayed that someone at the base was keeping an eye out for them.

"Rhea base, Rhea base, this is Corporal Mendosa. Do you read me?" His voice was starting to get panicky as he realized it would only be moments before a mop up would be initiated with the wreckage of the UEV's.

"This is Rhea base. We read five by five." The sound of his girlfriend, Triana Delth came on. "Are you fly boys coming back and gonna give us a snuggle?" She giggled lightly in his ear.

"Negative base. We are compromised." He uttered as quickly as he could while hoping to see anything that was coming out at him. Even if he couldn't move, it would help him if he could see what was coming at him. "There are hostile forces occupying the catapult. All marines have been taken out and I'll be next very soon. I am hereby ordering Defcon One procedures. Any inbound tracking should be considered Hostile and to be shot on…"

A raptor unit turned and its ocular camera panned over his unit, peering at it in a cold way. It seemed to detect his life signature and its central camera locked dead on into the camera, rotating into a narrow fix at him.

"Johnny Mendosa, speak to me right now." Triana called to him, trying to unfix his attention on what was going on around him. "What the hell is going on? Johnny?"

"Oh God…" He muttered self consciously.

"You're in luck." A female voice called over the com from the technician's booth in the catapult as the arm of the raptor pulled back, its blade charging. "I think he heard you." "The blade swung down at him.

* * *

**Yay, I have begun to introduce the bad guys. Maybe I'll be able to post something faster than...**

**How long ago did I post the last chapter?**


	6. Chapter 6

**I told you all that procrastionation was an artform. I actually finished up another story before focusing back on this one. I don't like starting a random one up and leave one idling, though I did it again, so I must be a glutton for punishment.**

**Disclaimer: All Your Z.O.E. Are Belong to Konami**

* * *

Connection Lost…

Attempting to Re-Establish Signal…

…

Signal Located

Establishing Connection…

Connection Established…

Hyperlink Data Transmission proceeding…

Continuing Playback…

* * *

The alarms had sent her feet flying down the halls to the launch bay. They had drilled over and over again on hostile attackers coming in from off planet, but never in anyone's wildest imaginings did they ever believe that someone would bother them so far out in space on a cold, frozen moon. Diego knew better than to assume that anyone would simply forget about them and leave them in peace. God doesn't play fiar in those regards…

Marines and techs were monkeying around on the last of the UEV's that were meant for space and planetary combat, hooking up the few missile pods they had and making sure that all cables and conduits were in proper working order before sending them outside into the harsh reality of an early grave. She hesitated next to Zevran's cockpit, watching the ballet of insanity that any pre flight goes through before she slid into her seat and fasten her space helmet onto her suit, bringing enviromentals up on her while the canopy closed over silently in its hexagonal pattern.

"Status report." She barked to the machine she sat in, knowing Zevran would already be in the process of reading the inbound targets through the bases own satellites and relays.

"Hostile Forces inbound, tracking multiple Raptor and Mummy Orbital Frames descending toward our location. Distance is 70,000 Kilometers and closing rapidly." Zevran's voice methodically spoke, no evidence to its previous 'humanity' in its voice as it clinically picked at the logical aspects of what was to come.

"Bring engines and weapons systems online. Switch weapon systems to safety off and cycle them up for actual combat." The systems were probably still set to their little light show from earlier where she had played 'tag' with the space debris that was tethered to the catapult. Best to assume something was turned off and needed turning on.

"Engines online and powering up. Anti-gravity field on and set for launching sequence." Zevran rapidly spoke off one at a time as the systems came to life around her, screens cycling up and then out as preprogrammed settings started and began running their own battles with themselves. "Weapons have been charged and cycled to Real Time Combat. Suggest activating Assisted Piloting Protocols to ensure a safe take off."

"Are you trying to tell me my driving sucks?" Diego felt a bit of anger at even the hint that someone was belittling her, let alone this hunk of junk she got stuck with.

"I would not assume to know how your vehicular skills are pertaining to such things." Diego gave the console a feral grin. "Your piloting, however, leaves much to be desired."

A passing technician on his way over to a UEV that needed a new stabilizer for its attitude thrusters nearly wet himself when Anjety's blades sprung to melee position above him.

"If you are done making fun of your pilot, I suggest you prepare to go out and blow the enemy away." Diego hissed through her teeth, trying to release the control balls underneath her hands.

"Vector Drive engine is now at optimal safety requirements. Anjety is ready to launch." As Zevran communicated those words, Diego's mental commands through her suit and into the ship around her propelled the ship down the launch way and out into Rhea's atmosphere which was starting to become colder as it turned from the face of the far distant sun.

The planet turned downward and away as they rose for the sky, heading for the mechs hanging far above in space even before any support could be launched after them. Diego's mind was only on the enemy before them, not for anything or anyone else. She noticed only a detached calm that seemed to sink into her, the precursor to the violence she was about to thrust herself headlong into. It was an almost a heightened state of awareness if not for the fact that she was flying.

"The enemy vanguard is coming into short range sensors. Estimated attack capabilities are as of yet, undetermined. Recommend evasive maneuvers before we become overwhelmed by superior numbers." Zevran's voice cut in as a holographic block appeared before her, showing the first markers for the enemies coming at them.

"It's dangerous to try and pull them off, we need to break them up, force them to spread out so we can take on a few at a time." Diego said, while cycling through the weapons they had available. One had potential, but would require her to stop moving for a short time.

"A highly charged ball of Vector energy would have to ability to spread out the oncoming foe, however, it will leave us immobile for 3.4 seconds." Zevran was of the like mind with her, she shivered slightly at that.

"The Vector Shot." Diego muttered as she brought all engines to hover, killing all forward thrust. "This is just like the simulations."

"This will be a little different from the simulations as you will be diverting power from the Vector Engine with your mental capabilities." Zevran's voice always the instructional tutor. "It will be highly unlikely that your first shot will be very effective, but should still scatter the enemy in the way specified."

Diego very much doubted that. A machine was made to be used in a specified way, you aim and pull the trigger. The simulations couldn't have been that far off, could they? Giving the mental command to draw energies from the Vector Drive, she watched as a small bubble of energy formed in front of the hand of Anjety, however, the bubble wasn't enlarging in the slightest.

"Is there a problem with the Vector Drive?" Diego began typing in a few commands, bringing up a diagnostic of the power flow.

"Vector Drive is stable, power flow for Vector Shot is also stable." Zevran spoke idly as if the falling enemies wasn't a concern to him. "This is the bare minimum needed to form a Vector Shot."

"A larger shot would be nice." She muttered darkly as she aimed upward and fired, hoping that they would at least never notice something as diminutive as that attack.

"The power output of the Vector Shot is relative to the user." Zevran described again, pointing out the obvious, at least to him, anyways.

Diego pushed the throttle forward after her energy shot, kicking the thrusters into the afterburn section of a standard flight plane, trying to catch up to the racing ball of destructive energy. Many of the Raptor and Mummy Orbital Frames diverted around the weak attempt at an attack whereas one Mummy decided to try to go through it. Its attempt proved to her that not much power had been behind the shot, but it did have enough to punch through the protective covering of the shielding plate and into the mech behind it as the pierce machine blew up spectacularly.

Bringing up the targeting recticle, she brought her arm forward and proceeded to pepper the advancing line of attackers with energy bolts launched themselves from her hands, as if the fingers had become mini particle weapons. More of the enemies spread outward, fanning out and away from the incoming fire as Anjety blazed upward and into their midst.

The good news was that now that they were close enough, they couldn't be shot without the enemy possibly hurting its own. The bad news, now they were close enough to be shot by enemies who didn't care about shooting their own. Energy bolts pounded into the shields, drawing precious energy from both their standard power source and the Vector Drive as well, the shielding being the Vector Engine bending space around them to misdirect any inbound weaponry.

The energy to keep said weaponry from hitting Anjety was taking its toll and within seconds of being fired upon, the screens and the weaponry began to flicker and dim. Diego took a few more shots, converting her other arm into the blade and striking out at anything that came too close as they passed through the firestorm.

"May I suggest a tactical withdraw?" Zevran's voice calmly spoke in her ear, though his voice began distorted the more energy was being used to keep the shielding up.

"This is why I wanted a larger energy shot!" Diego shouted over the sound of high energy bolts careening around overtop of the machine in question. She was jostled forward as the shields momentarily gave and they were hit from behind.

"Structural integrity is holding, however, energy to maintain the shielding is too low to maintain for much longer." Zevran's voice was coming a little faster, as if worried about which would come to an end first, this headlong rush or their imminent death.

Thankfully, they passed the last of the attacking force as they rushed past, barely managing to avoid striking a Raptor head-on. The dodge and roll followed closely by the engines switching over to hover allowed the ship to rise only a bit more before coming to a complete stop. She looked back down into the milling attack force as they decided whether to continue after her or down to the base.

Fortunately for her, the last of the UEV's managed to launch from the base and came to her rescue, attacking from the front while the forces were still undecided on who to attack first. Many of the Raptors and some of the Mummy's were damaged beyond capably attacking before they got a shot off.

Seeing her chance at inflicting even more chaos on them after her daredevil stunt, she diverted all power from her shields to the Vector Shot, hoping that this time it would do more than create a bubble. Her hopes were dashed as her hand held once again the small tactile weapon of area distorting particles. Frustrated and focusing her attention down to the back and even a few faces of her enemies, she didn't notice as the ball grew in size and strength in a matter of moments.

She tossed the negligible weapon in frustration at the enemies below only noticing as it impacted and expanded in destructive energy moments before impact that what she had thrown had been roughly the size of Anjety.

Her engines briefly cut out as the energy diverted from all sections of the ship before cycling back up to keep her in the air. The devastation the Vector Shot managed to cause was considerable, many of the machines backs were lightly armored or not at all, leaving them to take considerable damage from her attack while those that had turned to pursue after her merely took superficial damage.

"Enemy forces have been reduced by 30 and are dropping." Zevran's voice was taking statistical information as the enemy began to split its forces up amongst the defenders.

"Can we continue fighting?" Diego asked even as she saw incoming Frames.

"Affirmative. Anjety standing by." It was disturbing how the synthesized voice almost sounded eager. With a tightened grip, she began her attack run.

* * *

"It's almost scary watching them battle." Marsden said as he watched from a secluded section overtop of the command center. His hand idly played along the edge of the touch pad in his pocket as his nerves balanced along hope and acceptance to fate.

"She's damaged my ship!" Genjiki hissed, gripping the arms of his chairs tight enough to gouge them with his fingernails.

Marsden looked over at the manic scientist. The man was a genius in his field, but very unbalanced. In typical scientist fashion, he cared little for those he worked with and everything about those he worked on. Would it be such a waste to make the insane man disappear without telling his superiors? He'd lose face with them, definitely, but it was starting to look more and more likely that it was in everyone's best interests if the man was simply 'lost' someplace.

"At least we know that it can take the abuse." Marsden was going to have to have a talk with that woman again. That was a suicidal run she pulled off, thankfully she had survived and had managed to send the attackers into disarray long enough for them to get their forces into the air. The bad news was that the catapult was still in enemy hands, which meant an easy path for reinforcements.

"Of course it can take punishment." Genjiki muttered snidely. "I built it to survive a full burn entry into atmosphere as heavy as mars and still impact the surface going full thrust only to walk away laughing."

"The fact that you built it so tough worries me a little." Marsden commented, peering over at the scientist with the corner of his eye.

Genjiki made a dismissive wave. "Plan for the worst, expect the best." The scientist scoffed.

He watched as sensors indicated the breaking up and retreated of the enemy forces, now nearly half of what they had been. Diego had given a good showing, but that reckless streak was going to be her undoing. Maybe something calming would settle her down, like time in the brig.

* * *

"The enemy is in full retreat." Zevran spoke the obvious as Diego watched them burned atmosphere to head back into space and away from the tougher than expected defenses at the base.

"Anjety, this is Rhea base, do you read?" The voice of Marsden called over the comm. channel in her helmet. Keying the speakers of Anjety to the frequency of the base, she keyed the line open.

"This is Anjety, go ahead." She watched the enemies withdrawing, her trigger finger itching to fire at the backs.

"Return to base for refueling and recharge, then be prepared for a second launch." Marsden ordered over the comm. as Diego's eyes dropped to the control panel before her.

"Second launch?" Diego muttered, wondering what insanity they were going to make her do next.

"Enemy forces have commandeered the catapult. We will need you to fly support for a shuttle we will be sending up to it to reclaim it from hostile forces." Marsden spoke over the comm., answering the unspoken question.

"You do realize that it's a suicide mission for anyone to go up there and try to take the catapult back from them? It'd be easier to simply destroy the catapult and have a new one sent in." Diego voiced her doubts to the control panel in front of her, knowing Marsden heard her perfectly well.

"That's a loss of resources and manpower we can't afford to chance." Marsden spoke back at her. "Enough people have already lost their lives over trying to keep us safe and the catapult out of enemy hands. Unfortunately, some of them died before even realizing that there was trouble. In honor of their sacrifice, we're going to take back what belongs to us."

"Don't give me that frak!" Diego spat harshly. "Ego is all well and good, but loss of life is still loss of life. It's pointless to risk anyone else from going out there and dying needlessly over something that isn't worth it!"

The comm. line was quiet for a moment before Marsden spoke again. "You have your orders, Private. Carry them out, or you'll be facing a court marshall and a long time in a prison cell until this project is declassified."

The line was severed at the source, which did nothing for Diego's mood. Gripping the controls tightly in anger, she wheeled Anjety over and had it move back toward the base and her commanding officer. Thankfully, Zevran didn't say anything, although she had the feeling that it wanted to say something to her.


End file.
